Breasts, October, all things Pink and a slightly uneasy feeling.

Let me say this from the off: I wholeheartedly support anything to do with funding research into cancer, helping cancer sufferers, helping cancer survivors.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have been touched all too closely by cancer in recent years.

Cancer is a bastard. Make no mistake. I did the half marathon Moonwalk in May with my best friend Tracy who is a breast cancer survivor. Nothing else would make me walk 13 miles with my boobs out. Except maybe the odd long-haired-tattooed guitarist – but I digress.

The joy of doing that kind of event with someone you have a bond of 30+ years with is the dark humour that not only makes you laugh, but gets you through it. At one point in the middle of the night I turned to her and said ‘It’s just as well that cancer didn’t kill you because this bastard walk is going to finish us both off.’

(Next year I’m sending a cheque.)

So October rolls around and the world of beauty turns pink. Monuments are pink for the month and we are inundated by brands selling a vast array of ‘Pink’ products claiming to give a percentage of the profits to breast cancer research funding.

Well I’m not going for the blanket approach anymore. It’s too much. I hate to be sceptical but if you can’t name the value of your donation then I’m not promoting it. Or buying into it. The work I did in recent years with All for Eve and The Eve Appeal (let us not forget the vajays) has proven to me that it is always possible to say how much your brand is ring-fencing as a donation per product. You simply work it into your cost price or budget for it from the moment you sell it in to retailers. Done.

What Estee Lauder have done to support breast cancer awareness and fund research for the last twenty years was and continues to be pioneering. Every year for the last 20 years Lauder has released products and named the value of the donation. Clear as day. Crystal.

So: Monday sees the lighting of the British Museum by Elizabeth Hurley on behalf of Estee Lauder. It has a special significance this year since the passing last year of Evelyn Lauder, the pioneer of the entire movement in the beauty industry. I’ll be there supporting them because they put their money where their mouth is.

By October 2011 Estee Lauder had donated $8.5 million to the Breast Cancer Research Fund. The fund itself has raised $380 million.

If you want to – you can meet Elizabeth Hurley at Selfridges in London on Monday between 1-2pm and in Manchester next Thursday 8th at the same time. She is also lighting up Selfridges Exchange in the Trafford Centre at 7.40pm that evening.

If you are a brand jumping on what you think is a pink bandwagon and simply saying ‘profits from’ or ‘a donation from every sale’ are going to breast cancer I’m sure you mean well, but I have seen too many the last few weeks for my liking. Name your price people. Our mammaries deserve better.

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